Since 2022 Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough, US Researchers Have More Than Doubled Its Power Output (techcrunch.com)
(Sunday May 18, 2025 @11:06PM (EditorDavid)
from the power-ups dept.)
- Reference: 0177626899
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/05/19/0044238/since-2022-nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-us-researchers-have-more-than-doubled-its-power-output
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/17/laser-powered-fusion-experiment-more-than-doubles-its-power-output/
[1]TechCrunch reports :
> The world's only net-positive fusion experiment has been steadily ramping up the amount of power it produces, TechCrunch has learned.
>
> In recent attempts, the team at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Ignition Facility (NIF) increased the yield of the experiment, first to 5.2 megajoules and then again to 8.6 megajoules, according to a source with knowledge of the experiment. The new results are significant improvements over [2]the historic experiment in 2022 , which was the first controlled fusion reaction to generate more energy than the it consumed. The 2022 shot generated 3.15 megajoules, a small bump over the 2.05 megajoules that the lasers delivered to the BB-sized fuel pellet.
>
> None of the shots to date have been effective enough to feed electrons back into the grid, let alone to offset the energy required to power the entire facility — the facility wasn't designed to do that. The first net-positive shot, for example, required 300 megajoules to power the laser system alone. But they are continued proof that controlled nuclear fusion is more than hypothetical.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/17/laser-powered-fusion-experiment-more-than-doubles-its-power-output/
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/13/world-record-fusion-experiment-produced-even-more-energy-than-expected/
> The world's only net-positive fusion experiment has been steadily ramping up the amount of power it produces, TechCrunch has learned.
>
> In recent attempts, the team at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Ignition Facility (NIF) increased the yield of the experiment, first to 5.2 megajoules and then again to 8.6 megajoules, according to a source with knowledge of the experiment. The new results are significant improvements over [2]the historic experiment in 2022 , which was the first controlled fusion reaction to generate more energy than the it consumed. The 2022 shot generated 3.15 megajoules, a small bump over the 2.05 megajoules that the lasers delivered to the BB-sized fuel pellet.
>
> None of the shots to date have been effective enough to feed electrons back into the grid, let alone to offset the energy required to power the entire facility — the facility wasn't designed to do that. The first net-positive shot, for example, required 300 megajoules to power the laser system alone. But they are continued proof that controlled nuclear fusion is more than hypothetical.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/17/laser-powered-fusion-experiment-more-than-doubles-its-power-output/
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/13/world-record-fusion-experiment-produced-even-more-energy-than-expected/